Stanley Leary is a Black Star photographer who has been telling stories for more than 20 years as a photojournalist. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Business Week, Sports Illustrated, Wired, Chicago Tribune, NY Times, World Book Encyclopedia, Information Week, Popular Mechanics, Technology Review, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and many other publications.

Last month, I covered Boston College’s victory over Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Here are a few of my photos from the game, along with some thoughts on my approach to shooting the assignment.

First, when covering a football game, I like to stand behind the end zone so the team I’m focusing on is facing me. That way, I am already where they are trying to go.

There are two types of photos you can get of a team from this vantage point — defense and offense. The great thing is you can see the players’ faces, which for me is very important.

In this photo, for example, Boston College wide receiver Kevin Challenger spins loose from Georgia Tech defensive back Avery Roberson, setting up Boston College’s first touchdown. What I like in the photo is you can see Challenger’s face, along with the defensive player he left in the dust and the ball.

In sports with a ball, I am typically looking for three things: (1) peak action, (2) the ball and (3) competition. Sometimes you can’t get all three in a picture, but if one element stands out, the photo will still work.

In this photo, BC receiver Rich Gunnell is tackled by Georgia Tech safety Djay Jones and teammate cornerback Pat Clark after a catch. While you cannot see the ball or their faces, the peak action of the players’ feet off the ground communicates the effort.

After one team is ahead in a game, I often begin to focus on the other team to see if there is a play that changes the whole game. When the game is close, this can happen at any moment. With a blowout, the latter part of the game is harder to cover since not much will happen to change the outcome of the game.

After you shoot a game, it’s important not to editorialize in your captions — but to provide concise descriptions of what’s taken place. Concise, but chock-full of information.

Today, databases require the captions to be written so the software can pick keywords from the caption so that editors can find the photos. One thing to remember, for example, is to list both teams in the caption. This way, the editor knows which game the photo is from. It is common for editors to search for a few photos and then put them in a folder, and well-written captions help them with the necessary information.

Getting a great moment in the camera is only part of the story; it is the caption that fills in the rest.

A final note about the picture above; like all of these, it’s taken at night, which is a bit more diffcult. But it communicates all three elements: He’s carrying the ball, it contains peak action, and you can sense the competitive pressure he probably feels from the defensive player pursuing him.